Magic in the Moonlight
Director: Woody Allen
Talent: Emma Stone, Colin Firth, Simon McBurney, Eileen Atkins
Release Date: 19th September 2014
Director Allen’s near prodigious output has thrown up a lot of great, middling and kind of bad movies. Yet for true fans, there’s always that touch of idiosyncratic magic that makes them worthwhile. That’s certainly the case here. In a film that looks sumptuous and carefully crafted, it also suffers from stifled performances which are probably the product of a half-cooked script.
Set in the 1920s, a misanthropic but successful magician is called upon to unmask a spirit medium he suspects of being a swindler. Clashing ideologies give way, then, for unlikely love. Disappointing more than bad, it feels like Firth and Stone, both capable actors, weren’t given enough time to inhabit their characters past basic caricatures. Amusing for sure, but fraught by an off-putting frivolity.
Words: Eoghain Meakin
